China Targets Family, Friends to Coerce Activists

Xiao Yong used to hold up placards at protests, demanding that China’s leaders declare their assets in a call for political transparency and accountability. But he stopped after men began following his father around and urging him to persuade his 39-year-old son to drop his activism.

“I started to dread that my father’s health would deteriorate because of this,” said Xiao, a former employee at a state electrical utility in the southern city of Shaoyang. “The government was working on my family members, talking to them and instilling fear in them.”

To deter political and social activists, Chinese authorities routinely target their family members, friends and associates, pressuring them to be unwilling agents of persuasion or penalizing them directly.

[…] Sometimes they use more menacing tactics, such as blocking children from their schools, stripping spouses of employment and placing relatives under investigation for fraud. [Source]